Our synagogue was destroyed by the Germans, but my father, who was president of the synagogue before the war, was forced by the Germans to hold the position, becoming a liaison between them and the Jewish community.

In a sense, I was lucky. I stayed in my own home until 1942.

That all changed in October 1942, when my father was informed by the German mayor that the entire town would be liquidated. Even though my father was ordered not to let anyone know about the impending liquidation, he told everyone he could to look for hiding places.

My grandfather was killed by the Nazis, and the rest of my family split up and went into hiding. I hid for three weeks, and during that time the Germans issued a proclamation that any Jews who came out would be sent to labor camps — a much better alternative than being shot.

With no place to run, and no means to resist, more than 300 Jews took the bait and came out of hiding. A week later, they were taken into the woods and shot.

I was selected to work in the gang building runways for the German jet planes at the airport in Krakow until January 1943.

Eventually, my father and I were transported to the infamous Krakow-Plaszow camp, the camp depicted in "Schindler's List."

Everyone knew that even one encounter with the camp's sadistic commander, Amon Goeth, was likely to be fatal, but I was lucky: I had four encounters with him, and managed to survive.

The first time was when my father and I first arrived at the camp. Before the war, my father had been a tailor, and as we were standing in line in an old factory, I looked around and saw the machinery, and I spoke up and volunteered to get it going again and turn it into a tailor factory.

I took a chance. I could have been shot on the spot just for speaking. But Goeth said yes, and our lives were saved. Our first job was to rip apart the clothing of Jews who had been taken away and killed, with orders to "look for loot" that they might have hidden.

I found out later that my sister, who was held at the same camp, took her own life with a cyanide pill.

In January 1945, as the Russians moved closer, the tailor factory was shut down and we were taken on a forced march to Auschwitz. As the Russian advance continued, we were forced on the march again, this time toward the Czech border. With 60,000 other prisoners, we crossed into Austria, and eventually into Germany.

At one point, we were confronted by a guard who I had promised to make a pair of pants for, but I couldn't finish because we were forced out of the tailor factory.

He took my father and me out and was about to shoot us, but a commander ordered him to stop for some reason. That's the way it was — you could be shot for not being able to make a pair of pants, or you could be saved for a reason that you couldn't understand.

On May 7, the day after my father and I were almost shot, we ran away and went into hiding in the German Alps. The next day, we found a farmhouse and walked toward it. When we went inside, we were horrified to see about 50 German airmen!

We were certain we were going to be shot after all. But it turned out they were deserters. They looked at us, and finally one of them said: "Are you hungry?"

I turned to my father and said, "Well, Dad, at least we won't die hungry!"